V. I. Lenin

Interview with Arthur Ransome, Correspondent of theDaily News{1}

Interviewed:March 23, 1918Published:First published in 1932 in Russian (as an illustration) and in English in the book: R. H. Bruce Lockhart,Memoirs of a British Agent, London.

      Printed from the typewritten text with a postscript in Lenin’s own hand.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      2nd English Edition,

      Progress Publishers,1971,

      Moscow,Volume 42,

      page67.Translated:Bernard IsaacsTranscription\Markup:D. WaltersCopyleft:V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marxists.org)
      © 2003

      Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the
      terms of theGNU Free Documentation License.

Oneof the weakest spots in
Balfour’s speech is the statement that the Japanese are going to help the

Russians.{2}Which Russians?

InRussia today there is one power, which by its nature is destined to
wage a life and death struggle against the attacks of international
imperialism-that is the Power of the Soviets. The first step, however, of
those Russians, whom the Japanese intend to “help”, as soon as they heard
rumours of the advance of the latter, was to demand the abolition of the
Soviet Power. Should the Japanese move into Siberia, these same "Russians"
whom the Japanese are going to “help”, will demand the abolition of the
Soviets throughout the whole of Siberia. What can take the place of the
Soviet Power?

Theonly power that can take its place is a bourgeois government. But
the bourgeoisie in Russia has proved clearly enough that it can only remain
in power with foreign help. If a bourgeois government, supported by outside
help, should establish itself in power in Siberia, and Eastern Russia
become lost to the Soviet, then in Western Russia the Soviet Power would
become weakened to such an extent that it could hardly hold out for long;
it would be followed by a bourgeois government, which would also need
foreign help. The Power to give this help would, of course, not be
England. It is easy to understand what avenues are opened up by this
possibility.

Iconfirm that I really said this in a conversation with .Ransome, and
I give permission for it to be printed.

Moscow 23.III.1918

{1}A photo copy of the typewritten text of this interview with a
postscript in Lenin’s own handwriting (as well as an English translation of
it) was published in 1932 in the book: B. H. Bruce Lockhart, Memoirs of a
British Agent. The copy of the typewritten text of the interview bears the
following note by Lenin: “23/Ill given to Ransome#8221; (Central Party
Archives of the Institute of MarxismLeninism of the C.C. of the C.P.S.U.).

DailyNews—a bourgeois newspaper published in London from 1846 to
1928.

{2}Lenin is referring to the speech of A. Balfour, the British Foreign
Minister, in the House of Commons on March 14, 1918, in which the latter
tried to cover up the true aims of the Japanese intervention by
hypocritically alleging that in occupying Siberia with the consent of the
Allies, and seizing the Siberian railway, Japan would be preventing a
German invasion of northern Asia.